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I feel like I've had a heavy evening headbanging. My neck turns about half as far as usual and then hurts like a bastard. I think it's just me having slept in an awkward position, though. Hopefully it'll clear up during the day.

There's going to be a street party in Marchmont on Saturday. There were a couple of leaflets left at the front door last night about it. If you read the story, it's very strange (assuming you know Marchmont at all).

EDINBURGH residents and students who have been at loggerheads over claims that their area was becoming a "student ghetto" are to hold a massive street party later this month, designed to reunite the community.

Now, when I moved to Edinburgh in the summer of 1986, one of the first things I learned was that marchmont was a student ghetto, due to being very pleasant, within easy walking distance of nearly all of the University and not cripplingly expensive. I suspect - and those who've lived in Edinburgh rather longer than me may care to comment on this - that it was a long way from being a recent thing even then. So what's this bit about it "becoming" a student ghetto?

And while we're at it, who are this MAGPIE bunch anyway? I've seen them mentioned in the papers, but I haven't heard anything from them directly. As a local owner-occupier, surely I'm exactly the sort of person they seek to represent and whose opinions they should be interested in? "Residents are campaigning"? It sounds more like a few busybodies shitstirring to me. The flat above me's got students in it, and has done for the last couple of years, and for the period of a few years before I went to Cambridge too. I don't remember any problems. And some of the students are very decorative. I have friends who've had problems with noisy neighbours, and I haven't noticed any tendency for it to be students. Are students really more trouble than people generally?

David Stay, the secretary of MAGPIE, said the Executive needs to "realise this is a problem" and to prevent any more students moving in to the area.

Remember, all Lebensraum means is "living room". And we're all in favour of bigger living-rooms, aren't we? </injoke>

Finally, following the speculation a while back about contacting Kaija, I was wondering during a quiet moment yesterday whether the SCA-group member was particularly likely to actually be her . . . and I guess the answer's Yes.

Apropos of a vague coment by tals, the Beeb have the Toyota Hilux video up online. If you didn't see this when it was on the box, the story is simple : Top Gear decided to see how badly you could mistreat one and still have it drivable. The answer turned out to be "really quite badly".

It's hard enough already. The council's talking about extending the parking-permit system right across Marchmont (I'm in favour, although it does mean I'll have to shell out for one) and I bet they'll oppose that too.

I do recall a piece on the subject of high-student-fraction areas in Leeds which noted that many students are crap at looking after gardens and such. Mind you, I think that some of the opprobrium there should definitely land on the landlords' heads for not chasing poor tenants with a big stick.

Kaija was back in Britain with a friend called Vince about six years ago, and I saw her in DC a few months later. I mailed her a couple of years back, but that address seems to have evaporated since then.

Is there an irony here, in that a goodly number of the owner-occupiers in Marchmont are ex-students who lived there in splendid studently squalor during their university days, then bought back into the place thereby driving prices up to the point where later generations of ex-students couldn't afford to buy there?

They had a street party in 2000 (or maybe 2001) to try for some strange largely unadvertised unity. Some Beltane folk performed and entertained everyone/ smoked and annoyed everyone. It was quite good fun (though not for anyone who wanted peace and quiet)

As someone who needs to buy a ground floor flat in a good area, I've got nae chance of affording Marchmont. When all the ex rentals came up when some landlords sold rather than conform with HMO, they wanted too much even for the skankiest places.

nimby nimby nimby! basically. Where do they want the students to go, exactly? And who do they want to replace them? They should be forced to spend a month in dumbiedykes, or niddry, that would make them appreciate what a problem students aren't.

oh, apparently they've teamed up with similar groups in glasgow and st.andrews. Um. Where do the folk in st.andrews expect to put the students, then? In the sea? St.andrews has 2 local sources of revenue - students and tourists. Whinging nimby shits like to complain about both of them. grr.